Page 11 of Last Chance for Her Rancher Boss

“I’ll show you your room, then,” he said. With that Nash turned to the house and strode off, shoulders hunched. Meg gripped the strap of her duffel bag with white knuckles as she followed him.

Inside it wasnice, and she really hated to admit it. She had been expecting the usual run-down old farmhouse, cluttered and dusty and dark. The outside certainly looked run-down, with flaking paint and a few missing clapboards up on the second story. But inside it was clean and neat in the entrance, which shot off to a kitchen and a living room. The windows were open, and the house was bright and fresh with the morning breeze fluttering through. There were even houseplants, adding pops of green around the place.

“Uh, kitchen,” Nash said, pointing a finger towards the mentioned room. “Living room. Downstairs bathroom. There’s one upstairs as well, where my room is. And this…”

She followed him down the short hall to a bedroom just as neat and clean as the rest of the place.

“This is where you’ll be staying. If you want to, that is…”

He snuck a glance at her out of the corner of his eye then looked sternly at the bed pushed up against a wall. He was still giving her an out, she realized, an opportunity to sayno thank youand walk straight back out the door. Meg wanted to. She wanted to run from this as fast as she could and not look back.

But then her stubborn streak made an appearance. This was making her feel uncomfortable, sure, but Nash looked like he was suffering about a million times worse. That made up her mind, then and there, to stick around and do her job.Shehadn’t done anything wrong. There was no reason forherto be the one running away. And if sticking around meant it made Nash feel like crap, well… spite was a powerful motivator sometimes.

“Thanks,” she said, walking into the room and throwing her bag down with a decisive thud. “This will do great.”

She gave him a smile, lips pressed tight together, and looked him dead in the eye. He was the first to break eye contact, and it gave her a savage little thrill.

“I’ll let you get settled, then,” he said and fled, walking off, and a few seconds later Meg heard the front door open and close. Meg closed her own door and locked it for good measure, sitting on the edge of the bed.

She needed to think, but there were too many things she needed to think about. And before she could think about any of it, she really needed her heart rate to slow down to a normal level.

Nash Callahan ran a ranch. Nash Callahan ran a ranch that she needed to evaluate. She needed to stay on this ranch with Nash Callahan for a couple of weeks, at the very least, ask him questions off her list, see to his animals, and survey the land.

Nash Callahan had blown out of the past and knocked down the carefully constructed walls that Meg had built around herself. Now she felt stripped bare, out in the open, without a single safety line to cling onto.

There had been no apology from him. She’d fantasized about that sometimes, though she would never admit it out loud. Especially in her first few months at college, living in a Texas dorm. She’d imagined him busting through a classroom door and making a grand announcement in front of everybody, falling to his knees and begging for her forgiveness and making it all right. She’d still had enough hope in her that Meg had been willing to forgive him if only Nash would reach out. That was the test; he had to be the one to reach out first. But after the disastrous prom night, she’d never even gotten a text. By the end of her second semester, any chance of forgiving him was gone and her hurt had turned into cool, hard resentment.

Up until now, Nash Callahan had been nothing but an embarrassing memory and one of life’s harder lessons. She’d imagined him falling to his feet, begging for forgiveness. But there had been no sign that he was remotely remorseful; if anything he seemed bent out of shape that she was there, like turning up had been an inconvenience. So Meg didn’t think there would be an apology at all.

And really, when she thought about it, what hurt most was that he probably didn’t even remember standing her up at the prom and saying all of those hurtful things. What hurt was knowing that he had no idea how much she was hurt at all.

CHAPTER 5

NASH

Nash felt like he was having an out-of-body experience. As he walked towards the stables, his feet automatically taking him wherever they pleased, it felt like the only explanation. There was a strange numbness all over him, inside and out. He moved like a plane on autopilot.

He ended up back at Tilly’s stall. The mare’s mood hadn’t gotten any better, and she didn’t seem particularly happy to have him there. But Nash didn’t know where else to go. He didn’t know what to do…

The last time he’d seen Meg was the day before senior prom. He’d never seen her all glammed up in the dress she’d chosen, never seen her under the lights in the gym, because he’d stood her up, hunkering down in his bedroom like it was Fort Knox. He’d been in love with her for years, a deep, matter-of-fact love that was so solid he hadn’t realized that it was evenlovefor the longest time. He’d always thought being in love was how it was in the movies; it made you feel sick and stupid. But this had just felt like a fact, strong as concrete. At the end of the day though, he was an awkward teenage boy, Meg was his best friend, andshe was way too good for him as it was. So he had kept quiet and kept his love to himself.

It was obvious that she was going to be a superstar vet, that she was a borderline genius at that stuff. And Nash was… well, he wasn’t really much of anything. A drifter at best. Even at eighteen he’d been aware of that. He was destined for a normal life, and that was fine. There were worse lots in life to be saddled with.

But then Meg had actually started entertaining the idea of staying in this dead-end town forhim. His whole body had revolted at the idea… the thought of chaining her down, of making Meg mediocre just so she’d be close by… He couldn’t stand the thought of it. He’d thought it was a joke at first, but then she seriously started comparing the local college versus the one in Texas, and he’d panicked. She couldn’t stay for him. She shouldn’t stay for anybody or anything; she needed to get out to a place where she could spread her wings and be brilliant. And she definitely needed to get away from her parents, her mom specifically.

So he’d set the friendship on fire. He’d stood her up at the prom, staying home in his fort. He’d ignored her calls and her texts, even though the shrill beeps of his ringtone set his teeth on edge. When he’d finally answered, he’d been a jerk about it, hitting every sore spot he could. All the while he’d been thinking,Don’t stay for me. Do something for yourself for a change.

It had been messy, and it had been cruel. She’d never spoken to him again. The older he got, the more he cringed at what he’d done that night. But in his pigheaded, teenage brain, it had been a desperate attempt to do the right thing, like jumping on a landmine to save someone else.

There was a strange sense of relief in him now, knowing that it had worked. She was a veterinarian, after all, and alivestockvet on top of that, at an industrial farming company. Only the best were hired for those sorts of roles, and they made ridiculous amounts of money doing it. Nash had always known that she could be the best, so long as she had the space to actually grow. So it was worth it, in the end. All of it had been worth it. It was the same mantra he’d been repeating to himself for the last decade, but now he had actual proof that it was true.

He hadn’t intended to completely destroy their friendship; that had never been the goal. He’d just wanted to make her see that she was meant for bigger things than this small town and all its small problems. Staying around just because she was friends with him wasn’t a good enough reason to stick around, not by a long shot. Having her never speak to him again hadn’t been the end goal — he’d tried, in a fit of guilt weeks later, to get in touch with her. But the effort was quickly abandoned when he realized that either she had blocked him on every single messenger platform or she was straight up ignoring him. Nash hadn’t really been sure which one was worse.

After the whole thing had blown up in his face, after she’d disappeared forever, Nash had truly realized how in love with her he’d been. He always had been in one way or another, even if he hadn’t been aware of it. His brother knew too and said he looked like a sick puppy whenever Meg was even mentioned, and that he looked like someone had died when she left. It would have been easy, so easy, to put his own feelings first, to trap Meg in this nowhere place in the hopes thatmaybeshe might feel the same way as him. That was when the reality of what he’d done really sunk in. Meg was gone. Not just from the state of Wyoming but from his life. She was probably going to be goneforever. It was a very unique sort of grief because the person he had lost was still alive out there somewhere.

He’d never had a North Star to follow, never had any serious goals and ambitions. Nothing had ever called to him the way some people seemed to have callings. The only real anchor in his life, the only thing that had the power to change his future, had been Meg. And then she was gone. Well. It was a successful plan then, wasn’t it. And really it was just further proof that he was nothing but a weight on her, like a little kid clinging to her ankles, making it harder to move forward. He hadn’t concocted this whole thing as the best thing for him; he’d done it because it was the best thing forMeg.So what if he was hurting? It was his own fault. And it was for the best.

After that Nash had thrown himself into a regular life, taking it all day by day until the days led him here. Now. With Meg standing in front of him with a bag over her shoulder and a stunned expression on her face.

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